Minnesota Supreme Court information impacted by third-party data breach

The Minnesota Supreme Court and the Minnesota Court of Appeals were among the units of the state's judicial branch that were hit by a data breach involving user information, officials confirmed Thursday.

The user information came from backup data that the courts had provided to their third-party vendor, Thomson Reuters Court Management Solutions. 

Thomson Reuters provides the judicial branch with a product called C-Track, which was hacked in March. C-Track discovered the data breach, which impacted courts from across the country, in June. The judicial branch said it terminated Thomson Reuters' access to court information. 

The Minnesota Tax Court and Minnesota Court of Administrative Hearings were also impacted by the cyberattack.

Case documents were not included in the breach, and Minnesota courts are continuing to operate as normal. 

"Since we learned about this incident, we have been working with Thomson Reuters and the Branch's internal cybersecurity experts to conduct a full investigation to understand the root cause and the scope of the breach," said Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson. "I am deeply troubled that our court users' data has been compromised and want to assure you we will do everything possible to get to the bottom of this and ensure your information remains safe."

The state's judicial and executive branches are working to determine the specific information that could have been compromised in the breach.